Parades Near Columbia, SC in the Spring
St. Pat's in Five Points is the spring parade most of Columbia turns out for: it steps off at 10:00 a.m. on Devine Street in March, costs nothing to watch, and turns into Five Points, where a ticketed street festival takes over. Lexington's Shamrock Parade covers the same holiday on a smaller scale, at 3:00 p.m. on Main Street.
After March the parades leave the city and ride along with hometown festivals, five in April and four in May, most of them honoring a crop, a bird, a fish or a flower. What separates them is how much of the weekend they take. Four of the eleven are one-day events, while the Poultry Festival in Leesville, Puddin' Swamp in Turbeville and the Sumter Iris Festival run three days, and Tartan Day South runs four or more.
Our picks
- A family that can't do a morning: Shamrock Parade, Lexington. Steps off at 3:00 p.m. on a Sunday, which leaves time for lunch downtown first, and it is much smaller than the Five Points parade.
- Free parking with a garden to wander after: Sumter Iris Festival Parade. Admission and parking are both free, shuttles run from the civic center, and the iris gardens hold three days of concerts and plant vendors around the Saturday parade.
At a glance
| Option | Address | Month | Parade start time | Celebrates | Admission | Festival length |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Devine Street, Columbia, SCsource | Marchsource | 10:00 a.m.source | Irish or Celtic heritagesource | Free parade, ticketed festivalsource | One daysource | |
| Main Street, Lexington, SC 29072source | Marchsource | 3:00 p.m.source | Irish or Celtic heritagesource | One daysource | ||
| 2001 Charleston Highway, Cayce, SCsource | Aprilsource | 12:00 p.m.source | Irish or Celtic heritagesource | Ticketedsource | Four days or moresource | |
| Hopkins Park, 6940 Lower Richland Blvd, Hopkins, SC 29061source | Aprilsource | 11:00 a.m.source | Local crop or foodsource | Freesource | One daysource | |
| Bridge Street, St. Matthews, SCsource | Aprilsource | Local wildlife or fishingsource | Two dayssource | |||
| Courthouse Square, Manning, South Carolinasource | Aprilsource | 10:00 a.m.source | Local wildlife or fishingsource | Freesource | Two dayssource | |
| Turbeville, SCsource | Aprilsource | 10:00 a.m.source | Hometown traditionsource | Three dayssource | ||
| 624 Main St, Eastover, SC 29044source | Maysource | 12:00 noonsource | Local crop or foodsource | Freesource | Two dayssource | |
| Johnston, SCsource | Maysource | 10:00 a.m.source | Local crop or foodsource | One daysource | ||
| Main Street, Leesville, SCsource | Maysource | Saturday morningsource | Local crop or foodsource | Freesource | Three dayssource | |
| Swan Lake Iris Gardens, 822 W. Liberty Street, Sumter, SC 29150source | Maysource | 10:00 a.m.source | Flowers and gardenssource | Freesource | Three dayssource |
Free to watch, and what still costs money
Five of these list free admission outright: the Lower Richland Sweet Potato Festival, the Striped Bass Festival, Eastover, the Poultry Festival and the Sumter Iris Festival. Free does not always cover everything. Manning's fishing tournament and food and craft stalls charge, Eastover's Friday-night JAMfest concert is ticketed separately from the Saturday parade, and the midway rides before Johnston's Peach Blossom Festival sell their own tickets.
Tartan Day South is the one row where the parade itself sits behind a ticket. Its Parade of Celtic Nations is the clans marching onto the athletic field at the old Columbia Speedway at noon, inside the ticketed Saturday games, not a march down a public street. Its Thursday kickoff and Sunday Kirkin' of the Tartans are free but held at other spots in Cayce, West Columbia and Lexington.
Start times and the drive out from Columbia
Five of these step off at 10:00 a.m.: St. Pat's, Manning, Turbeville, Johnston and Sumter. Hopkins starts at 11:00 a.m., Eastover and Tartan Day South at noon, and Lexington at 3:00 p.m. That matters more than it looks, because the farther parades are the early ones.
Southeast of the city, Hopkins is about twenty minutes out, Eastover about twenty-five, St. Matthews about half an hour. Leesville is about forty minutes west and Sumter about forty-five minutes east. Manning and Johnston are each roughly an hour away, in opposite directions, and Turbeville is a bit over an hour east, so a 10:00 a.m. parade there means an early start from the city.
The options in detail
St. Pat's in Five Points Parade
Columbia's biggest spring parade, and the one most people in the Midlands mean when they say "the parade." It runs down Devine Street through Shandon and turns into Five Points, where a ticketed street festival with live music and a 5K takes over for the rest of the day. Watching the parade itself costs nothing: the festival gates sit further along the route, so families regularly come for the floats and leave before the music starts. Expect thousands of people and street-parking-only around Shandon.
Shamrock Parade, Lexington
A small-town St. Patrick's parade down Main Street in downtown Lexington, presented by the Lexington County Blowfish baseball club. It is a mid-afternoon Sunday event rather than a morning one, which makes it easy to pair with lunch downtown, and the line-up leans local: Irish dancers, school bands, floats, pageant winners and the odd novelty train. The Lexington Chamber runs a separate Shamrock Festival kids' zone around the same weekend. It is much smaller than Columbia's St. Pat's, which is the point for a lot of families.
Tartan Day South Parade of Celtic Nations
The Midlands' Highland games, held at the old Columbia Speedway in Cayce. The parade here is not a street parade: it is the Parade of Celtic Nations, when the clans and societies march onto the athletic field at midday to open the Saturday main event. Around it you get caber tossing, massed pipe bands, herding dogs, birds of prey and a British car show. Note that Saturday is the ticketed day, while the Thursday kickoff and Sunday Kirkin' of the Tartans are free and held elsewhere in Cayce, West Columbia and Lexington.
Lower Richland Sweet Potato Festival Parade
A free community festival at Hopkins Park, about twenty minutes southeast of downtown Columbia, that opens with a parade at eleven and then runs all afternoon. The programme is built around local performers rather than touring acts: praise dancers, step teams, a drum line, live bands, a health fair and a kids' fun zone. Organisers describe it as having grown from a small neighbourhood event into one that pulls people from surrounding counties. It is alcohol- and smoke-free, no tents are allowed, and people bring lawn chairs.
Purple Martin Festival Parade, St. Matthews
Calhoun County's spring festival, named for the purple martins that return to St. Matthews each year and treated locally as the official start of the season. The parade comes down Bridge Street on the Saturday morning and hands off to a full day on the courthouse grounds with music, vendors, food trucks and carnival rides. It is a genuinely small-town affair about half an hour southeast of Columbia, and the organisers publish very little online ahead of time, so the county's Facebook page is usually where the year's date appears first.
Striped Bass Festival Parade, Manning
Clarendon County's big spring weekend, running since 1980 and built around the striped bass fishing on the Santee Cooper lakes. Saturday, known locally as Super Saturday, opens with the hometown parade at ten and then fills Courthouse Square with vendors, rides and live music; the fishing tournament weigh-in is a spectator event in its own right. Around twenty thousand people typically turn out. Watching costs nothing, though the tournament and the food and craft stalls do charge. It is roughly an hour east of Columbia.
Puddin' Swamp Festival Parade, Turbeville
A three-day hometown festival in Turbeville, the farthest of these from Columbia at a bit over an hour east. Friday evening is rides and a band, Saturday opens with the parade through downtown and then runs all day with opening ceremonies, pageant winners, an art show and a car, truck and bike show, and Sunday is gospel and beach music. Organisers talk about it as a reunion as much as a festival: people who moved away come back for the weekend. The festival grounds have moved around in recent years while the new town library is built, so check the current layout before you go.
Eastover BBQ Festival & Parade
One of the oldest events on this list, now in its forties, and the closest thing to a classic small-town barbecue parade near Columbia: about twenty-five minutes southeast, free to attend, with the parade stepping off from Webber Elementary at noon and ending at the town hall where the festival grounds are. Floats, antique cars, live performers and a lot of barbecue. In recent years the town has paired it with a Friday-night JAMfest concert, which is ticketed separately, so the Saturday parade and festival remain the free part.
Johnston Peach Blossom Festival Parade
Edgefield County's peach festival, run by volunteers for more than forty years and held in historic downtown Johnston, about an hour west of Columbia. The day opens at nine with crafters and food vendors, the parade steps off at ten, and a cruise-in of classic cars, antique tractors and old pickups fills a downtown lot afterwards. There is also a bass fishing tournament and a beauty pageant attached to the festival. Midway rides run the two evenings beforehand and are ticketed separately.
South Carolina Poultry Festival Parade
The biggest parade on this list by unit count: more than a hundred entries down Main Street in Leesville on the Saturday morning, part of a three-day festival that closes with fireworks. It celebrates an industry rather than a crop, and the food follows: chicken on a stick is the thing people drive in for. Around it there are three stages of music, a hundred-plus craft vendors, a Thursday one-price ride night, a Friday street dance, a 5K, a car and tractor show and a chicken calling contest. Held the weekend before Mother's Day, about forty minutes west of Columbia.
Sumter Iris Festival Parade
One of South Carolina's longest-running festivals, set in Swan Lake Iris Gardens when the Japanese irises are in bloom, about forty-five minutes east of Columbia. The Saturday parade runs from Alice Drive and Miller Road down to the civic center, and the gardens themselves hold three days of concerts, craft and plant vendors and children's activities. It draws bus tours from as far as Canada, so parking at the gardens is limited and the city runs free shuttles from the civic center. Admission and parking are both free.
How we researched this
This table covers March through May and parades within roughly an hour's drive of Columbia, which is why Turbeville, Manning and Johnston are in and Rock Hill's Come-See-Me Festival, Barnwell's Sundial Festival and the World Grits Festival in St. George are not. Kinetic Derby Day in West Columbia was dropped because its organizers paused it for 2026 over road work on the race route. The Orangeburg Festival of Roses was left out because neither its city nor its chamber page lists a parade, and Mardi Gras Columbia (February) and the Juneteenth parade (June) fall outside spring.
There is no date column on purpose: as of September 2026 most organizers had not announced spring 2027 dates, so Month gives when each is normally held. Five cells are empty because no source we could read stated them reliably: admission for the Shamrock Parade, Puddin' Swamp, Johnston and the Purple Martin Festival, and the Purple Martin parade's start time. Several of these post their details late, some on social media first (Calhoun County's Facebook page is where the St. Matthews date tends to appear), so look at the organizer's page in the weeks before, particularly for Puddin' Swamp, whose grounds have moved while Turbeville builds its new library.